I think a good way to think about it is in terms of healthy cycles. PLants create growth from the sun, with help from water and soil. Animals eat plants, excrete, and die. Fungi recycle plants, animals, and their excretions into forms that are reusable for the others to reuse them again, and the cycle repeats. The microbiology is involved and it's more complicated than that, but I wanted people to think about a healthy cycle of rotation in the earth.
John S
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"PLants create growth from the sun, with help from water and soil. Animals eat plants, excrete, and die. Fungi recycle plants, animals, and their excretions into forms that are reusable for the others to reuse them again, and the cycle repeats."

Yes!

Sepp is always adding fungi to his farm and I've tried to do the same. When I find mushrooms on my walks I try to pick a few here and there and bring them home. Once at home, I crumble them into my mulch in the forest garden. The variety of species seems to be increasing... there have been some cool fruiting bodies popping up here and there. Keeping enough woody material around in our climate seems to be key, since decomposition takes place rapidly.

A new threat appeared a couple of years back, Aspergillus Fumigatus. It evolved through resistance to anti-mycelium and the use of composting in the Netherlands and is already in Asia. Usually Aspergillus can't stand heat like many mycilia and attacks mostly reptiles and amphibians. Newts and salamanders are on the verge of extinction in the low-lands. (It's also discussed that airborne spores of mushrooms by the meteor might have killed the dinosaurs). But this strand of A.Fumigatus survives in compost at 37°, the right temperature to feel cosy in human lungs...It's starting to kill people in Holland and Belgium. Nature didn't work with compost piles...

We in the PNW USA are also having huge problems with frogs and amphibious reptiles. Perhaps they are the canary in the coal mine? Their thin skin means they have less protection from toxic poisons, which we kept creating more of each year. Some fungi can break down some of them, but not all.
John S
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Manfred Ramault

Posts: 27

Location: Yambol, Bulgaria

14

posted 3 years ago

The chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans seems to be the culprit for the disappearance of the newts and especially the Fire Salamander. The fungus has apparently been imported from Asia where the salamanders could resist it, not the case with ours. Frogs and toads are not affected...yet.

Manfred Ramault wrote:The chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans seems to be the culprit for the disappearance of the newts and especially the Fire Salamander. The fungus has apparently been imported from Asia where the salamanders could resist it, not the case with ours. Frogs and toads are not affected...yet.